Crawley Town vs Portsmouth Preview

08 September 2012 06:35

Pompey go to the Broadfield Stadium for their first competitive match with Crawley Town tommorrow, which will be shown live on Sky Sports.

Team News

Gabor Gyepes may make his Pompey debut after signing yesterday but Mustapha Dumbuya is missing as he is on international duty with Sierra Leone.

Connor Clifford is also away with the Irish U-21 team whilst Jordan Obita serves the second of his three match ban for his red card against Oldham which was never appealed.

Claude Davis and Sergio Torres are likely to miss out for Crawley again because of injuy but key players such as Kyle McFadzean, Hope Akpan and Nicky Ajose should return after the 3-2 JPT win over Gillingham.

The Match

It may still be early in the season but Portsmouth are already effectively 11 points from safety in League One once (or if) the points deduction is confirmed, so three points tomorrow will be very welcome.

The lesser-known Red Devils have started life well in the third tier of English football and could go top of the league with a win over Pompey tomorrow.

This will be a tough game, but if Pompey defend like they did against Bournemouth on Tuesday then it will be a third straight defeat for Michael Appleton's men as there is no way that Crawley's strikers will be as generous as Lee Barnard and co. tomorrow.

It's about time that Izale McLeod stepped up and proved his worth to the team as he has made little impact since his arrival, unlike strike partner Luke Rodgers who has probably been our best player so far.

Lee Williamson should also return to the side and hopefully he can bag a goal or two tomorrow, but the brittle backline is always going to be a worry and I expect the long balls from the home side to cause plenty of problems again.

Another defeat and the panic may well set in with just six games played, despite the promise shown early on. Hopefully that won't be the case.

Predicted Starting Line-Ups

Crawley

GK: Paul JONES

RB: Mat SADLER

CB: Kyle McFADZEAN

CB: Shaun COOPER

LB: David HUNT

RM: Nicky ADAMS

CM: Hope AKPAN

CM: Josh SIMPSON

LM: Nicky AJOSE

CF: Gary ALEXANDER

CF: Billy CLARKE

Pompey

GK: Mikkel ANDERSEN

RB: Johnny ERTL

CB: Kevin LONG

CB: Josh THOMPSON

LB: Jon HARLEY

RM: Lee WILLIAMSON

CM: Liam WALKER

CM: Brian HOWARD

LM: Jack COMPTON

CF: Izale McLEOD

CF: Luke RODGERS

My Prediction

I've not got a good feeling about this one, simply because we can't defend and our strikers haven't been sharp enough.